lady peaceful, lady happy
by rubertgiles
Summary: Rachel allowed herself to feel the hurt that came with her realization that Broadway didn't want her, so she should probably start acting like she didn't want it, either.


Rachel clamored out of her dads' car and was immediately struck by the smell of home. Their house was a block away from an autobody shop (it shuffled between a few big chains and was _Hummel Tires & Lube_'s only competitor in Lima; when he was irritated with her, Kurt sometimes brandished her dads' proximity to the shop as a deep betrayal), and the distant smell of oil and tires still lulled Rachel into an immediate state of comfort and security. The moment was burdened with countless flashes of other days when Rachel had arrived home after unpleasant days of school to be greeted by this smell and her loving fathers. The mean kids – her bad grades – her failures couldn't touch her then.

It was reassuring, in this moment when she was running away from her biggest, most monumental failure.

"It'll be good to have you back for a little while," LeRoy Berry said cheerfully as they walked up the sidewalk to the front door. "The house feels so lonely when you're not visiting."

"Yeah, I've been missing you guys," she murmured.

She didn't touch on the fact that he was graciously talking as though she was just home to visit, as though she hadn't called him a week before—still in tears from an anxiety attack after another in a long line of failed auditions—to tell him that she was done, that she needed to get away from her shit apartment and her shit roommates and her shit job at a shit restaurant in the shittiest city in the world.

They went inside together, Rachel half-listening as her dad told her that he and Hiram had run into Burt and Carole in the park yesterday and that they would be coming for dinner at the Berry household that weekend. "You're welcome to join us or steer clear, of course."

"Daddy," she said, cutting him off in the middle of a sentence about Hiram's plans for that week's dinners, "it really is good to see you, but I'm pretty tired after my flight. I think I need to go upstairs and take a nap."

"Alright, sweetheart. Your dad or I will come up and wake you when dinner is ready."

If she'd felt the safety and security of home while standing out on the sidewalk, the moment Rachel shut her bedroom door, she put up another line of defense. Part of her knew that it wasn't all healthy and good; she was on the precipice of leaning into a damaging pain.

But she dropped onto her bed and stared up at the ceiling and allowed herself to feel the hurt that came with every _You're not quite right for this role_, every _We're looking for something a little more_…, every _Maybe I could find some way to get your headshot to the top of the pile if_…

She allowed herself to feel the hurt that came with her realization that Broadway didn't want her, so she should probably start acting like she didn't want it, either.

Quitting her job and moving out of her place had been such a frenzied task that she hadn't even taken the time to think about it until now, mostly because she'd expected to cry over it, and she just hadn't wanted to set aside the time.

Rachel did not cry. She blinked up at the ceiling and she ached.

* * *

For the better part of a week, Rachel saw very little beyond the walls of her bedroom. She tossed and turned until 3 or 4 AM and slept into the afternoon. She read some. One or two nights, she stuck around downstairs after dinner and watched TV with her dads.

Despite her deep misgivings, she ate dinner with her dads, Burt, and Carole that weekend. Over dessert, Carole was the one who finally acknowledged what Rachel's parents could not.

"So, Rachel, I know you only got into town earlier this week, but have you thought about what you might want out of a job here in Lima?"

LeRoy and Hiram both jumped to answer for Rachel—

"We're in no rush to push Rachel to look for a job if she's not ready."

"Who's to say Rachel will be home long enough to want a job here?"

—and Rachel nearly had to shout to make sure she was heard over both of them. "I honestly don't know yet, Carole."

Her dads fell silent. Burt and Carole looked at her gently, non-judgmental, and her heart burst with love for them. "This is the first time I've actually let myself imagine what I want from a career outside of Broadway, and I don't really think I'm in a place yet to say where I might like to end up. I think right now I need to be okay with just trying things to see what sticks."

Carole smiled, her eyes kind, but Rachel felt no condescension or feigned sympathy from the look. Again, she felt tremendous love for Finn's mother. "Of course, hon. You deserve to find something that brings you joy."

"Hang on," Burt said. It was a comically dramatic moment, his fork halfway to his mouth as his eyes widened and he looked at Rachel. "Did you hear that that sheet music store is closing?"

"Between the Sheets? No!" The moment she said it, the concern and alarm felt wrong; what should her hometown music store matter to her now?

"Yeah, the manager is finally retiring and decided to just shut it down and sell the place instead of looking for someone to keep it open. But I was talking to Eddie Hathaway, the guy who owns the bookstore next door, when he came in for an oil change, and he's apparently in the process of buying the place up so that he can expand his store. He was saying that he might have to actually bite the bullet and get an employee or two to help out."

Rachel stared at Burt. Anyone else, she would have been worried that this whole thing had been an elaborate plan to tell her about a job opportunity, but she got the sense that he and Carole had come in with no such agenda. They were interested and concerned about her life, and then Burt had remembered something that he heard organically elsewhere.

It was reasonable, and she wanted to believe it.

So she said, "That's… not a bad idea. I'll think about reaching out to him."

* * *

Eddie Hathaway was an older, disgruntled man whom Rachel had always been afraid of when she was young, in the way that little kids are sometimes afraid of grown-ups who seem mean while actually just being a bit sad and lonely. When she stepped into his store, though, she was also reminded of him chatting amiably with her dads as she explored the shelves, of all the glorious books she'd picked out under his watchful eye.

Hell, he'd sold her her first Barbra biography.

"Ms. Berry." He was leaning out from amongst the shelves in the non-fiction section, cradling a stack of books under one arm. "It's been a few years."

"Yeah, it has," Rachel agreed softly. "It's good to see you, Eddie."

"Last I heard from Hiram and LeRoy, you were off in New York doing big things. You back in town for a visit?"

Rachel swallowed and tried to keep her expression neutral. "No, just… back in town."

It seemed that he, too, was trying to keep his features blank as he walked out from the shelves put the stack of books down on the counter in the middle of the store. "I never liked that city much anyway."

And Rachel couldn't help but chuckle.

"You in here for anything in particular today?"

"I am, actually, but not… I mean… um, Burt Hummel told me you might have an opening for an employee."

"Oh, I see." Eddie peered at her for a few moments. "Why don't I make us a pot of coffee and we can chat for a while."

* * *

Rachel started her job a week later, and at first, she only really left the house to go to work. Her friends from high school were all off doing Big Things in Big Cities, so she didn't have anyone to spend time with, and she was terrified of running into their parents while doing errands because she didn't want her friends to learn the news of her return to Lima secondhand.

So after that first dinner with Burt and Carole, her first run-in with someone she knew happened in the bookstore one Saturday morning.

It was one of the first days that Eddie was letting Rachel work the store alone, and she was near the back, re-shelving a few science fiction books that had been misplaced, when the bell rang to announce a customer had just walked in.

Rachel stuck the last book on its appropriate shelf and wove her way toward the center of the store, preparing to greet the customer with a cheerful smile.

And then she saw who it was, and her heart plummeted. Her smile stayed plastered on her face but it felt so very fake. "Will, hi."

Damn, her voice was too high; she hated how nervous she sounded.

"Oh my God, Rachel?" He rushed to her immediately, pulling her into a hug, and it had been about three years since they'd last seen each other, but Rachel fell into it immediately, trying to think about how she pleased she was to see him instead of the outpouring of sympathy she was going to confront from him in a few seconds.

"What are you doing home?"

In that moment, she realized that she'd been hoping that somehow he'd already heard, and that maybe she'd prefer that her old friends from high school find out from someone else.

She didn't look at him, busying herself with some stacks of books on the counter. "I, um, moved back about a month ago."

"Oh, Rachel…"

"You don't need to say anything, Will," she told him, meeting his eyes and smiling weakly. "Honestly, I'd rather you didn't."

"Alright," he said carefully. Kindly.

It was awkward for five seconds, and then Rachel leaned her elbow on the counter and rested her chin in her hand. "So tell me what's happening at McKinley."

Things were easy after that.

He didn't say as much, but Rachel got the sense that Will was very lonely. It was the way that he talked only about school, about his pain in the ass students and the kids in glee club and how weird it still felt to just be friends with Sue, even years into their truce.

Most glaringly, he didn't talk about Emma. Rachel knew that relationship had begun to fall apart sometime during her junior year of college and ended completely not long after Rachel graduated from NYADA. They'd been on the brink of splitting when Rachel last saw him at the joint party for her and the other glee club alums who'd finished college that year, but he'd still been hopeful.

Maybe he'd been bluffing, putting on a brave face on a festive day. Rachel wasn't about to ask.

As was the case while she was at McKinley, it sounded like he didn't allow himself much of a life outside of teaching and running glee club. When she asked what he'd been up to more recently outside of school, all he could do was name the books he'd read recently.

Unlike when she was at McKinley, Rachel now had a very deep sense of the tragedy of his life. It wasn't that someone couldn't be happy with that sort of solitary life, but she suspected that Will wasn't.

She could kind of relate.

That was the reason that she took advantage of a lull in conversation to hesitantly say, "Hey, so… my dads have been on my case about how I don't really leave the house except to come to work. It feels kind of weird to ask, but what if we got together at the Lima Bean some time?"

"Oh." Will's eyes widened slightly, and Rachel experienced a brief moment of panic, but his lips curled into a genuine smile. "Sure, Rachel, that would be really nice. Let me give you my new number and we can figure something out."

Rachel found herself closing up the shop that evening in a better mood than she'd been in since before she arrived in Lima.

* * *

It had been nearly five years since Rachel graduated, and in that time, she and Will had pretty much lost touch. It wasn't intentional, at first—Rachel felt great about this audition, or that call-back, and she thought that maybe if she held off long enough, she might be able to reach out to him with exciting news about her first workshop or chorus role.

Then it had been too long, and she had been too depressed, and it had just seemed easier to… let him go, or at least to let him let her go. Their friendship had only ever been tentative, anyway, with not enough distance between their dynamic as student and teacher to be able to talk about much beyond school and glee club.

But they had done much of the school and glee club catching up at the store, so that almost as soon as they sat down at the Lima Bean the next weekend, they ran out of the niceties.

For five long, _long_ seconds, Rachel tried to convince herself that meeting up with him wasn't the worst idea she'd ever had.

"Earlier this week, I finally listened to the new _Company_ revival cast album," Will said abruptly.

Rachel felt herself immediately sitting up in her seat. "Did you? What did you think of—"

"The Bobby and Amy gender swaps? I'm honestly torn. I know plenty of women have recorded 'Being Alive' spectacularly—including Barbra," he allowed, gesturing kindly to Rachel as though accommodating an expected rebuttal. "But something about hearing it in the context of the show… I don't know if I like how it changes the show to cast a woman instead."

"How—" Rachel cut herself off there, feeling suddenly shy.

Will raised his eyebrows at her. "If you want to say something, go on, Rach. I asked you about it because I knew you'd have opinions."

"How much of that is just because you see something of yourself in Bobby, though?" Rachel peered at him as she took a sip of her coffee.

Shit, she couldn't believe she said that to him.

She just told her old teacher that he relates too much to a Sondheim character whose entire arc is realizing that he regrets romantically isolating himself.

Will hesitated before giving her a soft smile. "I forgot just how blunt you are."

Rachel blushed. "Yeah, I'm… I'm sorry. I've been trying to be better about that."

"I didn't say it was a problem!" he exclaimed at once, his light chuckle cutting off whatever discomfort hung over the moment. "It's refreshing. And you're probably right, I think it says something that high school Will Schuester already admired Bobby instead of feeling sorry for him."

He cocked his head at Rachel, considering her briefly before saying, "In an unsubtle topic change, you should tell me all of your thoughts about Patti LuPone as Joanne."

And Rachel lit up immediately.

Time slipped away after that, until Rachel realized that it had gotten dark and her dads were likely wondering about her—she hadn't been late for dinner once since moving back, yet here she was.

Something warmed her heart about Will's willingness to talk musicals with her, and as they were shrugging on their coats and preparing to leave, she told him so.

"You know, everyone… everyone else has avoided talking theater with me since I came back. And it's just… really nice that you didn't."

If she didn't know any better, she would say that Will looked downright sad. "I'm glad, Rach. I can tell you still love it a lot."

They both smiled, then, smiles that didn't quite reach their eyes.

By way of farewell, they stepped outside to head to their respective cars and Rachel found herself asking, "Let's do this again?"

Will grinned.

* * *

Without agreeing upon it, they gradually reached a point where they were seeing each other about once a week. As New Directions began working toward sectionals, then regionals, then _nationals_ in earnest, Will's schedule got busier, and Rachel's began to fill up as Eddie gave her increasing responsibility over the store, but almost every week that they couldn't get coffee, Will wandered in and lingered, chatting over the counter with Rachel and catching up with whatever other Lima residents happened to come in.

It still felt odd to Rachel nearly six months later, that Will had somehow become a part of her routine again. Even though they were no longer in that post-graduation friendship limbo, even though they'd reached a point where they were, quite likely, each other's only true friend. Each other's best friend, which felt more significant.

"Has Eddie told you yet how soon he's reopening Between the Sheets?" Will asked on one of his many visits. He was busy peering through a mystery novel that Rachel had already told him he wouldn't like, but as always, he stubbornly insisted on making the choice of whether to purchase.

(Neither of them ever acknowledged that anything Rachel vetoed for him ended up on the 'Reshelve" stack at the end of the aisle.)

"Give it another week," Rachel sighed. Things would be so much easier if she could be annoyed with him for his impatience, but she knew his eagerness was more about finding new rep for the kids, and she found that endearing.

"That's what you said at the end of last month, and then he decided he wasn't happy with how the tile floor juxtaposed with the wood in here. You don't have to make excuses for your boss being an outrageous perfectionist."

A customer arrived at the cash register and Rachel put on her best customer service smile for them, claiming their books and absentmindedly saying, "I think I do when I'm also an outrageous perfectionist."

"Doesn't he trust you? Tell him the place is fine and he can stop nitpicking."

Rachel didn't reply, giving her full attention to ringing up prices and handling money and smiling away until the customer was gone. Then, at last, she leaned her elbows on the counter and considered him. "You do realize that I can ask him to put in an order for you if you want something specific."

He opened and closed his mouth a few times, both too flustered and too at ease with Rachel to feel ashamed.

"I may or may not have a student who wants us to try, 'Unruly Heart,' from _The Prom_ as a possible ballad in competition."

Rachel had it for him the next time they saw each other. Neither of them said anything of the fact that it was such a fast turnaround that it must have been a rush order.

* * *

New Directions won nationals for the first time since Rachel graduated from McKinley, and the following weekend, she and Will went out to celebrate.

She realized only as they sat down at the bar that somehow, they had never had alcohol together. It didn't feel intentional, but as they received their first drinks, it felt monumental anyway.

They'd been there a bit under half an hour when a stranger leaned against the bar beside Rachel. "Hey, beautiful. You here alone?"

Reflexively, Rachel looked at him, and her stomach dropped to the floor.

He was a carbon copy of the guys she'd dated in New York. After learning the hard way that she couldn't date another performer whose aspirations were as large as hers, she found herself mostly dating dancers—what few straight or bi dancers she, friends, Tinder could scramble up for her. They understood her goals, even if they didn't quite share them.

Even that had never worked, and Rachel had eventually written off the whole 'dating in New York' thing entirely.

So here was this man, tall, lithe, probably would have been a solid dancer with the right training. His hair was dark, his eyes bright even in the dim light of the bar, and yeah, New York Rachel would have been lost in him at once.

Lima Rachel considered him for the briefest of moments before contorting her expression to one of bewilderment, borderline disgust. "I'm sorry, my boyfriend is literally _right here_."

The guy looked between Will and Rachel, immediate terror registering on his face. "Shit, I didn't… That's my bad, man. You guys have a good night."

As soon as he was out of earshot, Rachel spun around. "Sorry, it's so hard to get guys to accept rejection unless they think you're in a relationship, and even then they sometimes don't give up."

"Hey, hey, there's nothing to apologize for," Will reassured her, reaching out and gently resting his hand on her arm. "I had a few friends in college who sometimes had to do the same thing."

They didn't discuss it anymore, although Rachel found herself sitting closer to Will, hoping that strangers would read the body language and stay away.

Much later that night, as Rachel and Will nursed what they had agreed would be their last drinks, Rachel found herself remembering the man again, remembering the version of herself that she left back in New York City.

"Can I ask you something, Will?"

"Yeah, Rach, anything."

"How long did it take?"

The puzzled frown on his face was enough to remind her that she had neglected a crucial part of that question.

"When… when you realized you were going to stay in Lima, how long did it take to… stop feeling like a disappointment?"

"Oh shit, Rachel…"

She couldn't blame him. Here they'd been hanging out for months and months, and this was the most she'd ever said to him about leaving New York. But even so…

"Will." A hint of harshness in her voice.

Maybe it was because he was so tipsy, but he was honest. "I still do, sometimes."

* * *

"Dads, I think I should get my own apartment."

She said this in the middle of an episode of _Drag Race_, which was a low blow, but mostly a calculated effort to avoid too much of a fight.

Hiram spun to look at her immediately. "You what?"

LeRoy jumped in immediately as well, saying, "Are you sure you don't want to take some more time to think about it, sweetie?"

"Yes, you know your dad and I are happy to have you in your old room as long as you need."

Rachel furrowed her brow, grimaced.

"I know that, I do. I just… I think it's about time we acknowledged that this is more permanent than we wanted it to be."

The two fathers looked at each other, and all at once, Rachel saw the fight leaving their eyes. It felt official in a way that nothing else had.

* * *

Quinn was the first fellow New Direction grad she actually ran into. She'd seen Kurt once or twice because of Burt and Carole, and that had been fine because Kurt… well. She'd held onto Kurt almost 'til the end of New York, and it was easy enough to fall back in with him.

They were at the grocery store at the same time, and for about five minutes, Rachel found herself desperately embodying Meg Ryan in the grocery store in _You've Got Mail_ as she tried to ensure that her old friend wouldn't see her.

It was as Quinn rounded a corner toward the produce and Rachel nearly crouched behind the oranges that she decided it wasn't worth it.

"Oh my God, Rachel?"

And then they were hugging, Rachel halfheartedly explaining her move and Quinn saying, "Yeah, my mom told me she thought she'd seen you around, but I didn't…" She cut herself off, her expression soft and warm. "It's good to see you, though."

Rachel asked what Quinn was doing around, and Quinn explained that she had come back to apply for an open position at McKinley teaching English.

"You really might like to teach at McKinley?" Rachel asked. She tried not to sound dismissive, if it was what Quinn wanted, but it was just… well, she'd gone to Yale.

She tried to ignore the voice in the back of her head, pointing out that she was in no position to judge people for what they did with prestigious degrees.

"I'm just thinking about it. I'm only certified to teach in Connecticut right now, so clearing that certification here so last-minute might be a pain, but the pay at my current school is lousy and I thought that at the very least, I might be able to leverage my teaching experience and my connection to Lima to get a better offer here."

Rachel couldn't help grinning. Yes, that sounded exactly like the Quinn she knew in high school. Ever strategic. "That sounds great, Quinn."

"Look, I have to run—I figured I'd see my optometrist while I was in town, and I'm already running late," Quinn said apologetically. "But my parents are on some cruise in the Caribbean, so I have the run of their place while I'm here if maybe you'd like to come over tonight or tomorrow and catch up some more?"

"Oh." Rachel didn't bother to conceal her surprise; although it was great to see Quinn, she hadn't expected her old friend to push for more time together. "I have plans tonight, but tomorrow night is fine. I can come once I've finished my shift at the bookstore."

Quinn nodded approvingly. "Excellent. Is your number still the same?"

"No, I changed it when I…" When she moved back to Lima, irritated by her New York area code despite the fact that she never had to see it. "I changed it. I should still have yours, though."

Together, they ensured that Quinn's info was still correct in Rachel's phone, and they parted cheerfully.

* * *

Will was surprised to hear Rachel's news about Quinn, as he had heard nothing of any McKinley grads applying for the open English position, but he shared in Rachel's excitement at having an opportunity to catch up with a friend.

"Do you keep up with any of your McKinley friends besides Kurt?"

He asked the question innocently enough, but Rachel immediately felt skeptical of him. "No, not really."

"And none of your NYADA friends either," he said carefully.

"What are you getting at, Will?"

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table between them. "Can't I be worried about you? I just…" He hesitated.

"Go on."

She was pushing it, she knew. Chances were, he was going to annoy her no matter what he said, and chances were, he _knew_ it and was just trying to keep things good between them, but Rachel pushed him anyway.

"You know that I think it's totally fine that you decided to come home, Rachel. I never want you to question whether I believe you if you say it was the right choice. But sometimes it feels like you're just… hiding here. I don't know if leaning on your old friends is what you need or whether you might need some friends who didn't know you then, but I think it says something that you haven't tried to figure that out."

The thing that hurt was not Will's bluntness—it was that Rachel immediately had to wonder whether perhaps he thought that she shouldn't be hanging out so often with him. Because as irrational as it was, that sure as hell felt like an undertone to the suggestion that she surround herself with more friends.

_Make more friends so that you can stop leaning so much on me_.

Her retort was true, but harsh.

"Couldn't I say the same to you? When's the last time you even hung out with your coworkers away from a school-sanctioned event, let alone anyone else?"

Will stared at her for several seconds, hurt and regret flashing across his face.

"We're not talking about me, Rachel."

"Are you sure? Because it kinda feels like this…" She gestured vaguely at him. "_Place_ you're in now is the reason you're so worried about me."

She was up and out the door before Will had found the words to reply, partially because she was angry, partially because she didn't want to give him the opportunity to storm off first.

* * *

When Rachel arrived at Quinn's the next night, her friend had just finished preparing a pitcher of sangria, which they both took to heartily as they sat in the living room and talked.

Rachel told her about how she'd come to work at the bookstore through Burt's suggestion, how close she'd become with Eddie in the almost-year since she'd started and how much she'd fallen in love with reading again as a result of her employee discount—which led to chit-chat about many of the most recent _New York Times_ best sellers and the books Rachel thought were deserving of more attention.

But all too quickly – quickly enough that her friendship with Will was conspicuously absent from the conversation – she urged Quinn to tell her _everything_ about Connecticut.

Even though Quinn wasn't happy in her current job, she had plenty of nice things to say about her current coworkers, one of whom had introduced her to her fiancé.

"Fiancé?!" Rachel exclaimed. "I didn't even see—" Her eyes fell to Quinn's bare ring finger.

"It just happened last week, and the ring didn't fit quite right, so we figured my trip would be a good time to send it to get resized. But yes, I am engaged," Quinn cocked her head and grinned at Rachel, her tongue peeking between her teeth in glee. "His name is Ben, and he's been working as a cook until he saves up enough money to feel safer taking out a loan to open his own restaurant."

Rachel raised her eyebrows at Quinn. "Lima wouldn't be a bad place for that."

"I know, I know, it's definitely part of the conversation." Quinn leaned back in her seat and sighed. "The weird thing is just… When I graduated from McKinley, I swore that I would never come back here. Not in an, 'I'm never going to live there again,' sort of way, but in an, 'I'm never going to visit,' sort of way. Is this… is this weird for me to be saying to you?"

"No, I know what you mean." Somehow, Rachel had lost what fragility she might have had about her return to Lima (except with Will, if the previous night was anything to go by), although in terms of where Quinn was coming from, it was more that… "Even when I believed New York was my destiny, Lima was special to me. I always felt at home here."

Quinn nodded. "Yeah, I never… never really felt that way, not since I was young. And then after everything with my parents kicking me out… I forgave them, I did, but this place was never my home after that. The rest of high school was just me waiting to get away."

"Yeah," Rachel whispered. She felt sympathy for Quinn, really. "Maybe they'll decide you're too good for them and offer the job to someone else?"

"Oh, c'mon, Rachel. Even if they aren't totally desperate to fill the position before the start of the schoolyear, we both know they're going to offer me the job."

They grinned at each other, Rachel delighting in Quinn's easy, well-earned confidence.

"Don't think it wasn't completely obvious that you refrained from mentioning your own dating life," Quinn said sternly after that. "Are you seeing anyone?"

Rachel's smile faded slightly as she answered. "No, not right now. I've honestly become a bit of a recluse. The only person I ever really hang out with is Will."

"Huh. I wasn't expecting that, but I almost feel like I should have."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, y'know." Quinn shrugged vaguely. "You said your dads were walking on eggshells when you came back, but on the other hand, you were scared to see old friends who might judge you… I don't know, I guess Will's probably apart from all that because he was there once, kinda. That's probably been pretty wonderful."

Rachel didn't answer, but she suddenly became aware of how heavy her phone felt in her pocket as she felt the sudden compulsion to text him and apologize.

Meanwhile, Quinn commended her for taking some time to steer clear of romantic relationships while navigating such a big life change. Venturing into territory she'd never have touched sober, she said how lovely it was to see Rachel's growth from high school—"you know how you used to feel like you had to be dating."

She wasn't wrong, and it was a genuine compliment that Rachel wanted to take well, but as it was, it just made her feel worse.

As though reading her mind, Will texted 15 minutes later.

_Hey. I don't want to distract you from your night with Quinn, but could we talk for a few minutes?_

Rachel excused herself to use the restroom, and as soon as she'd shut herself away, she called him.

"I'm really sorry," he told her by way of greeting.

"No, Will, you shouldn't be apologizing."

"But I should, Rach. You were right, I was projecting some stuff onto you and expecting you to listen just because I'd been there already…"

She blinked at her reflection in the mirror, smiling softly at herself—at him, even though he couldn't see. "Maybe I was right, but I… I shouldn't have said it like that. I was an ass. You've been nothing but a good friend to me since I've been back, but for a moment, it felt like you were just pulling some 'older and wiser' crap that just… freaked me out a bit. But that doesn't change the fact that you _have_ been through this, and you're probably right; maybe I have been using our friendship as an excuse to hide away."

The thought had occurred to her before talking to Quinn – hell, she'd been thinking it over and over on the drive back to her apartment the night before – but it felt odd to say aloud. Somehow, it was probably one of the most vulnerable things she'd ever said to him.

Will seemed to feel the weight of it, because he was quiet for an eternity before replying, "You've become my best friend this year, Rachel. An _equal_, no 'older and wiser' about it. It means a lot to me, how close we are. I don't want that to go away. I hope you know that."

"I do," she whispered.

* * *

Quinn did take the job at McKinley, and her return that August marked a shift in Rachel's life. Together with Quinn and Ben, Rachel joined a local bowling league, and they also went to trivia nights, playing as a trio or sometimes as a foursome, with Will along for the ride.

In the process, Rachel did make new friends, several of whom were close to her age but not close enough to overlap at McKinley. They became friends through bowling or trivia, but she began to see them elsewhere, too.

Will was still the person with whom she spent the most time, the person she called and texted the most. She liked it that way and, it seemed, so did he.

Sectionals neared, and for the first time, Will asked Rachel to come to McKinley and work with New Directions. It had been an unspoken agreement between them that he not make such an offer to her, although he sometimes asked for her advice outside of rehearsals.

But early in November, he texted her. _Quinn's agreed to come to a New Directions rehearsal next week and I thought maybe you could join. Are there any days you wouldn't mind fitting us in?_

It meant something, that he didn't ask her in person or over the phone. He was giving her room to think about it, giving her _ample_ room to say no.

Fifteen minutes passed, and she still had not convinced herself that it would be the _worst_ idea in the world, so she replied, _I'll think about it and get back to you soon._

Rachel did get back to him, and the next week, she found herself pulling into the McKinley parking lot for the first time in several years.

"This is so weird," she whispered to herself.

Her fingers lingered on the key in the ignition, as though she might change her mind at any moment and start the car up again.

Instead, she got out and locked up.

"Oh hey, Rachel!"

And there Quinn was, jogging toward her with sheet music in hand. "I thought that I recognized your car pulling in."

"Quinn, hi. What are you doing out here? Doesn't rehearsal start in a few minutes?"

"Yeah, I just accidentally left this in my back seat this morning," she explained, holding up the sheet music. "Did you have much time to look at it?"

Rachel had barely touched the music, just glancing over it during her lunch break that day. There had been little need; she was familiar enough with the ensemble numbers they were workshopping, and as for the big solo number… "Maybe This Time" had been her audition song. She could even remember so many years ago, hovering over the piano after glee rehearsals and singing through it over and over with Will in preparation for her college auditions.

"I spent a bit of time with it," she said aloud.

Quinn lingered at the front desk while Rachel checked in, chatting with the secretary about some controversy stirring amongst the faculty, but Rachel barely heard a word.

The walk to the choir room felt almost refreshingly automatic, an easy weaving through the halls and the retreating students that felt so much more habitual than Rachel's current routine. She nearly stopped at her old locker as they passed it, for God's sake.

Many of the students were already assembled in the choir room, either sitting in small circles or standing around chatting. Will leapt out of conversation with Brad as soon as he spotted them. "Rachel, Quinn, hi, I was just starting to wonder. How are you?"

Briefly, they chatted, but Will was also intent to get rehearsal started, so soon enough, he was calling everything to order, introducing Rachel, initiating vocal warm-ups.

Rachel and Quinn sang through warm-ups with them, and halfway through, Rachel glanced over at Quinn and saw her friend watching her. They smiled at one another.

They worked on one of the group numbers first. They were close enough to sectionals that Will was primarily working with them on choreography, leaving it to Rachel and Quinn to give any musical feedback, but Rachel said little. She mostly watched them; listened to Quinn; tried to lean into the discomfort of this space, of being in this position.

Because next—

"Great, guys, I think we've done about as much here as we can for the day. Why don't you all sit down and get some water, and maybe we can hear from Rachel?"

He looked at Rachel with a soft smile. There was a hint of eagerness in his eyes that shouldn't have surprised her, but it did—not once since her return had he expressed a desire to hear her sing again, but he looked so excited at the prospect of hearing her now.

"Yeah, I'd… I'd love to sing for you guys," she told them. "But before I do… Which of you is singing the solo at sectionals?"

A small redhead in the front row raised her hand; Rachel strained to remember the introductions at the beginning of the rehearsal and luckily remembered that this girl was a junior named—

"Gabby." Rachel smiled warmly at her. "Hi. I love this song a lot. I would have loved to sing it while I was in New Directions. How are you feeling about it right now?"

"Oh, uh…" The girl's brow furrowed as she looked quickly to Will, as though trying to silently ask how seriously she should take the question, and how seriously Rachel would take her answer. "I'm… feeling okay. At this point I can sing it alright, I guess I'm just trying to figure out how to sing it without feeling like I'm just doing a bad Liza impersonation."

"We keep trying to tell her that Liza's the last thing on our minds when she sings," Will told Rachel.

Rachel nearly laughed—as though it mattered that no one in New Directions besides Gabby felt the weight of Liza Minnelli hanging over the performance.

"Maybe we could sing it together?" Rachel offered, ignoring Will's comment entirely.

She half-expected the student to refuse, but surprise and a hint of joy crossed her face before she said, "Yeah, okay," and as Rachel asked Brad to begin, she was not alone at the front of the room.

Even though she'd never met this girl before, singing by her side made it all feel a little easier.

Rachel left the opening lines to Gabby, and what followed was far from the best performance Rachel had ever done in that room—they alternated lines before gradually singing more in unison, but their breaths, their intonation, their styles didn't click right away, and Rachel was primarily the one scrambling to accommodate.

Yes, it was far from perfect.

But somewhere along the way, Rachel realized that her singing partner was positively glowing, singing with a powerful voice that high school Rachel would have deeply resented.

Rachel hung back, gradually lowering her voice until, finally, she stopped singing entirely. Gabby was too caught up in the song to notice, and the other New Directions members were too caught up in her performance.

A glance toward the back of the room and Rachel saw that Will was the only one whose eyes were not on Gabby. He looked at her, pride and joy on his face that initially triggered a flurry of memories of other performances she'd done in that room, of the same pride. But then she processed the hint of something different, something Rachel couldn't quite articulate that inflected his joy with a tone quite distant from that old, mentor-like pride. This new gaze made her feel warm inside and she felt herself giving him the first real smile she'd mustered all rehearsal.

The students filtered out at the end of rehearsal that evening, Quinn apologetically rushing out with them to meet Ben for a wedding cake tasting, but Rachel lingered, and as the room emptied, Will wordlessly pulled her into the first hug he'd given her since he discovered that she was back in Lima.

* * *

Rachel told Will that she wouldn't be up to another rehearsal for a long time, but she went with him to sectionals, finding a seat near the back and saving one for him so that he could slip in after giving New Directions their pre-performance pep talk.

Glancing over, she saw him doing his best to look casual, but she knew him better than that.

Besides, his hands were trembling.

Nervously – but why should she be nervous? – she reached out and grabbed one of his hands, squeezing tight.

"They're going to be amazing," she whispered when he looked over in surprise.

Will gave her a shaky smile and nodded. She made to pull her hand away, but he clutched it harder, and she found that she didn't mind.

* * *

"You missed the turn onto Main Street."

"Oh, did I?" Will peered into the rearview mirror. "Damn. I guess we're taking the scenic route."

Rachel was surprised enough by Will's error that it took a few minutes – and a few more apparently wrong turns – to realize that each mistake might be entirely purposeful.

"Will, I'd like you to answer something for me honestly."

"Hmm?"

"I can't help but notice we're less than five minutes away from Quinn and Ben's place and growing closer by the second, on the same evening that they were conspicuously unable to join us for trivia for… vague wedding reasons they couldn't seem to agree upon."

"What's your point?"

Even in the dim light of the street lamps, she detected a hint of a grin, and she found herself feeling simultaneously endeared and unamused.

"Did you plan a party for me after I told you I just wanted to do a quiet birthday dinner with you?"

"I did not… single-handedly plan a party for you," Will answered carefully.

Again: simultaneously endeared and unamused.

"Will!"

"Hey, I know you didn't want us to make a big fuss, and I promise we didn't. But there are a lot of people who were excited to celebrate you!"

Rachel squinted at him, though he was too focused on the road to see her irritated expression. "So you're saying that it's my fault for making friends."

"Yes."

"Knew I was going to regret that," she mumbled.

And Will let out such a delighted laugh that Rachel couldn't be even performatively indignant.

They pulled up outside of Quinn's, and as they walked toward the door, Will said gently, "We still have our dinner this weekend."

"Yeah, I know." Rachel raised her eyebrows at him. "After pulling something like this, you better realize I'm picking the dessert."

Will was still chuckling as he opened the door to the excited shouts of Rachel's friends.

* * *

Although Rachel had been pleasantly surprised both by how many new friends she had managed to accumulate in the months since Will's well-meaning nagging and by how much she had enjoyed their company that night, she was ready to spend a quiet evening with Will alone.

Will arrived ten minutes early to pick her up from work, and he spent the time browsing sheet music in the subdued music section while Rachel dealt with the last-minute Christmas shopping in the adjacent book room.

She went over to meet him after she'd clocked out, and she glanced down at the selection of music he'd tucked under his arm—at least four or five scores.

"I can't believe you're using me for my employee discount," she mused, even as she led him over to the register in the sheet music section that Eddie had closed out the hour before.

"You'd believe it if you saw how meager my glee club budget is even with multiple national titles under our belt."

Rachel smirked at him as she rung up the prices.

"I have something to talk to you about once we get out of here," she said after a few moments.

He frowned. "What, no details at all?"

"No, no details for my ex-teacher who's befriended me purely to buy sheet music for cheap."

"Fine, not _just_ to buy sheet music." Will feigned thoughtfulness. "You've also given me an excuse to become a mystery fan."

"You should have no trouble deducing what I plan to talk to you about, then," Rachel offered, and Will found that he had no retort, so he just chuckled and looked through the various impulse purchase knick-knacks at the counter until Rachel was finished.

Once they were out in his car and on their way, she said, "So I've been thinking about something, and I don't want you to react right away when I tell you about it."

Will hesitated, on the precipice of asking for more clarity on _what_ she was about to say to him. But at last he said, "Alright."

"I know we haven't talked about it, which I… honestly appreciate, because I needed to process, but I've been thinking a lot the past few weeks about my visit with New Directions."

"Oh."

He sounded surprised. Disappointed, even, which Rachel registered but ignored as best she could—she couldn't think about that, not when she was about to talk to him about performing and singing for the first time since she got back to Lima.

"I'm still not ready to do something different, and I certainly still don't feel like I'm meant to go back to New York, but talking to your kids and singing with them was the most satisfying thing I've done in a long time. One day doesn't mean much but I left feeling like that was something I could do someday, and that feeling hadn't gone away. It's… really nice."

When he'd remained silent for more than a few seconds, she said, "You're not saying anything."

"You told me not to react," Will said, turning away from the road so that he could raise an eyebrow at her.

"I just meant let yourself think about it for a few seconds and you know it."

Will smiled. "Yeah, I do. I mean, Rachel, I haven't brought it up because I didn't want to give you advice when you weren't asking for it, but I've thought for ages that you might like becoming a music teacher, or a choir director, or a freelance coach… Anything like that, really. And when you came in, that just confirmed it for me. You'd like it, and you'd be pretty damn great at it."

"Not that I know that's what I want to do."

"Understood, Rach."

Softly, she said, "But I'd be good at it."

"Amazing," he agreed, his voice equally low.

* * *

Even though her family didn't celebrate, Rachel's Christmas morning was for her dads alone. They had dinner the night before, then Rachel had stayed over, sleeping in her childhood bedroom again for the first time since moving into her own apartment. It was strange, the way that she lay in that bed and immediately found the misery clinging to her that had brought her back to that room a year and a half before.

"I didn't realize how happy I've been until last night," she told her dads that morning over breakfast. "I think I'm exactly where I need to be right now."

"That's really wonderful, sweetie," Hiram told her, and she felt like he meant it.

Her evening, however, was spent with Will. His parents were the type to have an early afternoon Christmas supper, and by 8 every year, he was ravenous, so they made plans for the Jewish tradition of a movie and Chinese food.

"Are your parents upset you didn't stay longer?" Rachel asked him over dinner.

"They were a little annoyed, but I think they mostly felt obligated to react that way," Will said with a shrug. "We have about three hours' worth of conversation topics on Christmas and then we run out, so it's not like they would have known what to do with me if I'd stayed."

"So instead you saw a mediocre _Star Wars_ movie."

Will grimaced. "It really was mediocre, wasn't it?"

Rachel giggled down at her food. "They'll feel even better knowing that—you bailed on them for a mediocre _Star Wars_ movie."

"No, I bailed on them to see a mediocre _Star Wars_ movie with you. Big difference."

For the briefest of moments, Rachel's heart pounded, her stomach churned. More and more, with the smallest comments like that, it felt as though she and Will were treading into territory where…

Territory where she wasn't sure they should go. Not when he used to be her teacher, even if that was a decade ago. Not when she was already too scared to commit to a career path more serious than being an independent bookstore owner's only employee.

Not to say that she was convinced they shouldn't. But she certainly was not convinced they should.

"Speaking of _Star Wars_, did I tell you about what my uncle sent me for Christmas?"

Rachel raised her eyebrows. "Speaking of _Star Wars_?"

"Oh, I'm sorry." Will dug into his pocket and pulled out his phone. Beginning to swipe through it, he said, "My mom's older brother looks kind of like the Emperor, but specifically the Emperor after he uses the lightning that makes his face sort of shrivel away. I figured I must have shown you by now."

"You absolutely have not!" Rachel exclaimed, eagerly leaning forward.

Good. Precarious territory evaded.

* * *

One of their acquaintances from trivia threw a New Year's Eve party, and both Will and Rachel were invited.

Rachel arrived fairly early, and she mingled like a champ, milling about the party and chatting with friend and stranger alike as she nursed a glass of wine. It was about an hour after her arrival that she found—

"Quinn! Hi, Happy New Year."

"Happy New Year, Rach." Quinn's cheeks were just a little flushed and her eyes were shining as she leaned in and gave Rachel a hug—uncommon because of the frequency with which they saw one another, but not unheard of.

Even so, Rachel assumed that Quinn's alcohol intake that evening might have something to do with how affectionate her friend was.

The affection was contagious, however, and Rachel grabbed onto Quinn's hand and squeezed. "I feel like I haven't seen you in forever. How was Ben's family?"

"Affronted that the Midwest has stolen him from them," Quinn said, rolling her eyes.

"Mmm." Rachel nodded knowingly, even though she had certainly never even _met_ the parents of any of her boyfriends since Finn. "And the point that your parents felt the same way while _you_ were Connecticut…"

"Fell on deaf ears, yeah." Quinn grinned. "Other than that, it was fine. Ben's sister is having a baby, so our move to Ohio wasn't the topic of conversation for too long. How about you, how were your holidays?"

Rachel shrugged. "Oh, they were fine. I spent more time with my dads than I have for a while, which they liked, and I covered the store this past week so that Eddie could take an actual vacation for once. And Will and I went to see the new _Star Wars_, which was…" She wrinkled her nose. "Disappointing."

"Oh yeah, speaking of Will…" Quinn glanced around them. "Is he here? I figured I'd see him so I brought a little something that I got for him on our trip."

Partially to appease his parents after spending only a few hours with them on Christmas, Will had made plans to also attend their own, smaller New Year's Eve gathering, which was due to end at 10:30. Rachel reported this to Quinn.

"Gotcha. So he'll be arriving fashionably late."

"Sure," Rachel said, laughing lightly.

Quinn looked at her friend thoughtfully as she said, "You certainly seem to be doing alright, though." At the look of surprise on Rachel's face, Quinn added, "Navigating the party without Will, I mean. You look like you're having a good time."

Rachel hesitated, appraising. "What are you getting at, Quinn?"

"I'm not getting at anything, Rach." And Quinn was the one laughing now, nothing malicious about it but Rachel felt slightly unnerved anyway. "This is just the sort of thing you'd normally like to do in a team."

Younger Rachel might have felt a need to make a point, to spend the rest of the night conspicuously making the rounds solo. And she certainly felt that inclination, lurking in the back of her mind.

Instead, when Will arrived, he found her, and Rachel let him. He was still at her side when the countdown began.

Tentatively, half-certain that he would stop her, she stood up on her toes and pecked him on the lips as the clock struck midnight.

"Happy New Year," she whispered.

Will gave her a half smile. "Happy New Year, Rach."

* * *

It was about a month after New Year's that Rachel closed down the shop and called Will as she walked to her car.

"Rachel, hey, what's wrong?"

She understood his immediate concern—they talked on the phone often, but never without a preceding text exchange.

"Nothing's wrong, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to worry you. I was just wondering if you're doing anything right now."

"Oh, uh… No, I'm just doing some grading."

"Do you mind if I come over?"

Will's surprise was clear in his tone. "Sure, that's fine. Are you coming from the store?"

"Yeah, so I'll… I'll be there soon."

For the entire drive to Will's condo, Rachel's hands trembled, even as she clutched the steering wheel. She found herself tapping the wheel with her thumbs so that it could at least feel like a conscious choice.

"Hey," she said softly as he opened the door.

"Hi." Will took her coat from her and hung it in the closet beside the door, a well-practiced action that they both fell into without thinking. This, too, made Rachel's hands tremble. "I've already eaten dinner, but can I get you something to drink? Water? A beer?"

"Some water might be good," Rachel said after a moment.

Will clearly assumed she would sit in the living room and wait for him, but instead, she followed him to the kitchen, where his grading was spread out on the island. She sat on a stool facing away from the island, watching him fetch the glasses, the ice, the pitcher in the fridge.

"Are you sure nothing's wrong?" he asked, watching her in turn as he poured. "You're acting like you did after Eddie slipped on that ice last February."

"I'm just thinking about what to say," she told him. "I've been running over it in my head for…" Weeks, since New Year's at least. "A while, but conversations never really follow the script in your head, y'know?"

"Yeah," he told her kindly.

Because she was not facing the island, Will grabbed a chair from his smaller kitchen table and sat there, so that she found herself looking down at him. "I hope you know that you don't have to rehearse our conversations, Rach."

"Sometimes I do." Rachel ran her thumb over the rim of the glass. "This is about New York."

"Oh." Will leaned forward slightly, looking up at her with concerned eyes.

"I mean, it's about New York and… a lot of other stuff too. But it starts with New York."

Will watched her silently, giving her all the room in the world.

Rachel swallowed hard. "All this time I've been back, and I've never actually told anybody why I came home. Not my dads, not you, not Quinn. And I think that my dads, at least, figure that it must have been something really bad to make me run away and say that I don't want to go back. But it wasn't, not really. I mean," she found herself qualifying, saying more than she'd meant to. "I was shelling out a fortune to see a therapist for my anxiety and I was _still_ getting a few anxiety attacks a week, which is _pretty_ bad, but that had started to feel normal."

"Shit, Rachel…" Will breathed. She could tell that he was on the brink of saying more, that he was itching to comfort and reassure her, but he held off, well aware that she was not done.

"But what actually got me was this audition for a workshop. It wasn't even a big deal, it was a no-name director and I don't think the show's ever going to make it into a Broadway house. But she and her choreographer looked at me as soon as I got up there, they didn't even give me a chance to sing, and she said, 'No, you're all wrong.' And suddenly I just… believed her, Will. That I was all wrong for that show, for any show. I didn't feel like me anymore. I just knew I had to get away as quickly as possible."

This time, Will was completely silent while Rachel paused to take a sip of water, but she could see that he was still itching to comfort her, to jump out of his seat and hold her.

"At first I didn't tell anyone because I was ashamed to admit that I'd let something so small tear me down."

"No, Rach—" He cut himself off when he saw her expression, kind and forgiving but determined to go on.

"You, though… I think we need to actually talk about why I haven't been able to tell you."

Here, she did actually give him room to ask, "What do you mean?"

"Every time I pictured us talking about it, I couldn't stop imagining that I was suddenly back at McKinley, crying in your office about whatever was making me feel insecure that week."

Something akin to understanding dawned on Will's face. "I haven't seen you that way in a long time."

"I know that," Rachel murmured, and she smiled slightly before continuing. "But it still hung over me any time we talked about anything too serious for too long. And it probably would have gotten better I let us figure out how to talk now, like this, but…"

"What if it didn't."

"What if it didn't," she agreed.

Rachel and Will considered each other for what felt like an eternity, until finally she said, "Then there's also the other thing."

"The other thing?"

Her fingers were wrapped so tightly around her glass that her knuckles were beginning to ache. "The 'why should it matter to me whether you still feel a bit like my teacher' thing."

Will's expression remained neutral; it seemed there was extensive energy going into it.

"That is… a thing, yeah?"

"Yeah," he said, his neutral expression immediately crumbling to give way to a tentative smile and warm eyes. "I just wasn't sure… you're figuring out a lot right now without… that hanging over you."

Rachel laughed, surprising him. "It's been hanging over me long enough that I honestly had to figure it out, Will."

"And have you come to any conclusions?"

She smiled, her lips trembling, and she reached out her hand. "I'm starting to."

Will rose to his feet and crossed over to her in a heartbeat, taking her hand in the same moment that they each set their glasses down on his students' homework.

"Can I kiss you?" he breathed.

"Yes, please."


End file.
